The Wolves of Brooklyn
by Flurrin
Summary: Werewolf AU. Liz and Patti, two street-wise human girls terrorizing Brooklyn, enlist a young Reaper named Kid's help to break a curse that was placed on them by the last remaining priest of the Order of the Sun and Moon. Written for ResBang 2015.
1. Astray and Cursed

**Chapter 1 - Astray and Cursed: A Hawk For the Job?**

* * *

Sometimes Liz Thompson loved the curse. What she hated was the cure.

The night was an animal with a bloody moon as its ghastly, grinning, growling face. It hunted them through the forest of skyscrapers and hung over them, waiting to pounce when its prey was vulnerable. Though it was the peak of a biting autumn, the two girls couldn't feel the chill. Liz held Patti's hand, because she never got to hold her sister's hand anymore, and they ran from it, because they always ran. Until they were caught.

Because of the curse, Liz had not seen daylight for a long, long time. Her sun was the moon. She awoke anew to it every evening, a stumbling and shaking foal, and the first thing she always saw in the dim light were Patti's human eyes widening in the fear of pursuit.

Today, Patti had been running. And tonight, she was once again caught.

Liz stood over her sister, her helpless, empty hands reaching aimlessly down as if they could somehow help the girl at her feet. Patti's blue eyes were unfocused as she thrashed on cold wet grass of a Brooklyn park, the curse going through her like a seizure. Bones popped, muscles stretched, teeth became fangs. Liz dropped to her knees and pulled what remained of her sister into a tight embrace.

It never got any better.

There was a shrieking, blue-eyed demon on Liz's hands in minutes flat. An attempt was made to calm it, to keep it close, hold its struggling form down. Then Liz felt claws in streaks of pain down her breastbone and the creature burst free and scrambled away over the grass to become one with the hunting night.

It was the same every time. This was the cure: an exchange. There couldn't be two devils in Brooklyn. Liz was long accustomed to abandonment, but whenever the curse took Patti, she learned newly what it was to be left all alone.

The cold set in as she picked herself up. The scratches on her chest bled in stripes, but they weren't deep. She tugged her hoodie sleeves out of the knot around her waist and slipped it on over her head.

There was no time to waste if she wanted her sister back by morning.

* * *

The pathway that led out of the sub-dimension known as the Death Room was slow. It was imposing for students walking in and irritating for staff walking out, but Death the Kid loved every step of it. Below the blue sky, inside the sandy graveyard that it was his father's duty to upkeep, the trail was set underfoot by a cobblestone pattern. Above, it was shaped by an endless gateway of guillotines set on thick squared pillars, each the color of dried blood. Every single one was identical to the last. When passing under them, it was easy to forget that you were moving at all. This is why Kid loved them. The guillotines themselves were not bilaterally symmetrical—each blade curved down on one side, giving the appearance that the red mouth of this place was already closing in. But passing beneath them was a loop; unending rows of the same sight. To him, they seemed interactive: symmetry that only lived when it was witnessed.

Kid could not imagine how his father's current weapon had grown bored of such a view. The Death Scythe made short steps to stay in pace with Kid, his hands filled with photographs of all the "prettiest, most notably skilled, young, meister-less weapons" from across the globe. His long legs turned his gait into more of a stumble.

Kid walked faster.

"You should really reconsider," Spirit begged him, juggling the photos.

Kid knew he was leaving behind an uncertain, even disappointed father. But Lord Death was a reaper, like him. He understood that Kid had to do things the correct way. Kid wreathed himself in his black cloak.

"Do you want prettier ones? Oh, or more guy options? Tell me what you're into."

Kid whirled on the scythe, which was not as intimidating of an action as he'd hoped it would be, considering he only came up to Spirit's shoulders in terms of height. "Gender doesn't matter! I don't think of weapon partners the way you do." He stretched out both of his arms. "It's about symmetry, symmetry! I need two weapons that are identical."

Spirit blinked. "You want…a pair of twins?"

Kid looked at the scythe, but it was clear from his face he didn't get it. He waved a dismissal and walked away. "I'm going on this mission alone. I am the only weapon I need."

"But you shouldn't go on your own," Spirit insisted, almost tripping over the tail of the young reaper's cloak. "The Thompsons are notorious, violent thieves. They've eluded capture so far and no one knows how. At the very least, it should be up to a high-ranking weapon and meister pair to go after their souls."

"I'm a reaper," Kid said simply without turning. He pressed the skull mask down over his face. "I'm more than qualified for the mission."

* * *

More than qualified.

At least, that was what he said, but when Elizabeth Thompson's unmistakable face was sneering into his and an improbably large, silver dog was snarling up at him from her side, he finally began to have a few doubts.

"So, yeah," Liz was laying out for him in concise words. "I'm sure you can see why such a generous donation is necessary to my cause."

She'd already relieved him of his ID and cash. She leaned casually against the wall, leafing through them as she spoke around the rapidly shortening white end of a cigarette. Kid wasn't quite sure when she'd gotten ahold of his wallet, but he assumed it had something to do with the flirtatious way she'd embraced him earlier, before revealing herself to him as a pickpocket. He'd known, of course, that she would attempt something like this. However, he'd assumed she was alone, or at least that her only company would be her sister or another human. He hadn't expected…this. Kid wasn't sure where he stood on fighting animals.

Furthermore, the dog was flawless. It was a pure gray, without any spots or colors marring it, from head to toe. Its teeth smiled at him in two straight, clean, menacing rows from underneath rippling lips. He couldn't possibly risk harm to something so obviously perfect.

His words were failing him, too. He stared at the dog and then at Liz's face and neither made him any less nervous, though he was keeping up an unconcerned exterior over the story she was attempting to sell him. Her ratty fur jacket shifted on her shoulders as she positioned her face close to his, studying him. He could see lines of bloody scabs on her chest, reaching out from under the thin fabric of a camisole.

"Aw." She put a finger to his lips as though to draw attention to his own silence. "First time for you too, baby? Don't hold it against me. I was forced into this thieving life." She pushed her face into his, still giving him that fierce grin. The end of her cigarette glowed as she took a drag, then she breathed the smoke into his face. "I'm actually pretty impressed you haven't pissed yourself yet, rich boy."

The vulgarity unlocked his tongue. "Where's your sister?"

Her grin vanished as though turning a corner. She followed his gaze and her hand slipped from the wall next to him to yank her jacket together over the scars. She backed away, her eyes cold as the New York weather. She spat the cigarette butt out and threw his emptied wallet back at him, fearless. He caught it neatly with both hands against his chest.

"You stay the hell away from me," she warned. There was something wild and painted about her true features, some type of fear visible for a second under the deep street façade.

Kid refrained from responding, watching her run out into the maze of Brooklyn streets. The huge dog followed, stopping only once to look back at him with surprisingly soulful blue eyes before it bounded around a corner.

Sirens howled in their wake.

Checking through the personal remaining contents of his wallet, Kid sighed and allowed himself a moment to lean back against the graffiti-coated brick wall. So that was Liz Thompson. And if she was that intimidating, he wasn't sure he wanted to meet her sister.

There was only one way to find out. And, anyway, there was something about that dog that was niggling at him. He summoned his skateboard.


	2. The Dawning Moon

**Chapter 2 - The Dawning Moon: An Unexpected Offer?**

* * *

Sis was afraid. Sis was afraid, so she was supposed to be afraid, too. But she was strong, unlike Sis. She was fierce. She was _not_ small, not hairless, and not without a mouth full of weapons. She gave a dangerous grin to anyone who came too close as the smell of Sis's distress filled her nostrils. She pushed against the girl comfortingly, only to feel her shaking beneath the disguise of her defensive stance.

They were surrounded by monsters on all sides. Noise, anger, and worst of all, glee. They were cats, and Sis was a mouse to be played with and devoured. But that wouldn't happen. She circled Sis, glaring. The first hand that came down would not return to its owner unbitten. Possibly, it wouldn't return at all.

Then, suddenly, Patricia Thompson had frightening clarity. They had been lured here, out into this half-empty warehouse, and now they were trapped. She was a wolf, and her big sister was human, and they were surrounded by mobsters, and it was morning, it was morning, _it was morning..._

She felt her arms begin to shrink and fur knit itself back into clothing. Her tail was gone before she could remember how to wag it and Liz was staring at her in horror. The curse was their last defense. Now they would have nothing against the crowd of mobsters.

Some of them hadn't noticed the changes yet, still threatening Sis in coarse voices. "You should have known you couldn't keep robbing the Damiano family and get off scot free. Why don't you just tell me where your pretty little sister is and we'll make this easy for one of youse?"

A voice cut in. "Boss, look at the dog."

Sis knelt over her, her arms slipping over her sister's shoulders in a protective knot. Patti shook the painful curse away from her own shaking limbs and fell against her older sister. Sis wasn't the only one swearing under her breath. The mobsters were more surprised to see a wolf turn human than she was to _be_ the wolf turning human.

"Damn. The hell is this?"

"Witches, that's what."

She felt blind for a minute as her ability to see in darkness faded and color rushed back into the world. The warehouse, though undoubtedly bathed in dawn on the outside, had no windows. The only reason they could see was the Mercedes-Benz, parked behind the action but droning out its engine song, whose headlights had exploded to life as soon as they'd entered. Patti pulled back to look into her sister's eyes, her hand finding her sister's as naturally as catching her breath. The dark blue in them remained the same, even as the skin tones of her face went from gray-green to peach pink. Blue was the only true color to a wolf. They rose together, painfully aware of what they looked like—what they were. Two unarmed girls wearing the stains of the streets, pitted against magic and a mob.

"I'm sorry, Liz," she whispered.

"I'm—sorry, too," her older sister said, in a strange voice. She began trembling.

Patti's eyes had barely left her sister's, but they shot back in a hurry at this. No. Not now!

A row of guns were raised at once. From the relative safety of the passenger window of the Benz behind the crowd, a strangled voice yelled "Shoot them—shoot them now!" Liz whirled, her embrace tight as she put her back between Patti and the gun barrels. Patti screwed her eyes shut and the first barrage burst, deafening.

Shells clanked on the concrete floor. Patti opened her eyes.

Wings. That was what she saw at first, over her sister's shoulder and through a thin veil of tawny blond hair. But then the black fabric settled and a human shape appeared under it, standing stock-still in front of them. He was thin and flexible as paper, bent into some strange fighting stance she had no name for. As the mobsters tried to puzzle out what was happening, he struck, his knee smashing a shotgun to the floor and his leg sweeping another man off his feet. A round shot off into the ceiling.

Liz's arms around Patti gradually fell away, limp. Rolling her light blue eyes up into her head, she sank to the floor.

Patti tore her eyes off the scene to tend to her sister, but it was already too late. The only remaining trace of Sis was the wolf: large and gray and fierce. Its senses heightened by fear, it leapt past the remaining human girl and wrapped its jaws around a man's throat.

Patti knelt and covered her ears against the screams.

The chaotic sounds melted. The ground shook as a car mashed itself hood-first into a wall, but further gunfire ceased and shouts dulled under the thudding of Patti's pulse pressed against her ears. She wanted to run, but not without Sis. Never without Sis.

A black, wet nose came into her view. Patti took a hand away from her ear to rest it on the wolf's forehead, realizing as she did that the warehouse had gone completely silent. She whirled and found a mess of bodies, some of them groaning dazedly, tangled about on the concrete floor. A hole had appeared in the warehouse wall where the black Benz had thrown itself into reverse, painting the floor with tire streaks before carving itself an escape route.

Sis licked blood from her black lips. A low laugh escaped Patti, calming her. She smiled at the carnage.

Atop the mass of mobsters stood the cloaked figure. Patti squinted at him in the gray light and rose to meet him. The boy stepped easily down to earth, eliciting sharp yelps from their former attackers below as he trod carelessly on stray limbs.

Patti glanced between him and the wolf at her side. "Okay. You've seen what we can do. Why are you riskin' it? Gettin' this close to us is a bad idea."

He didn't slow, walking toward her with one hand stretched forward, palm down. "Because. I need to see…if her wolf form is as beautiful as yours!"

Patti opened her mouth into an O, but Liz ducked from under her hand, a growl opening in her throat. Her nails clicked on the cold ground as she put herself between them.

"Hey," Patti said suddenly, fuzzy wolf memories shooting back to be deciphered with a human brain. "Didn't we mug you good?"

Kid—she thought the name on his ID had been _the-something-Kid_ —welcomed the wolf, both of his hands nestling into her soft neck fur as he examined her face with no less than pure, childish delight. Liz's growl died. Her mouth remained open, fangs visible but nonthreatening as she shot Patti a confused look.

"Marvelous. What a perfect match. You are beautiful, beautiful!"

Liz responded to the boy's praise with a tentative wag of her tail, tongue unfurling out of her dark mouth like a pink banner. Kid's hands moved through the solid gray fur, searching for imperfections. Patti took a step forward. "Don't touch my sis!"

Kid's hands flew up, one taking position under his chin in thought. "Of course! You _are_ amazing. But what are you? You don't resemble the legend of the Wolfman."

"That's 'cause we're not men!" Patti snapped. Liz's ears flicked at her anger, and she backed out from between Kid's arms, whapping her tail stiffly against Patti's hip to warn the boy.

"Well, what are you?" Kid asked, meeting her gaze. His unwavering eyes, as she'd noticed before in the streets, were a fierce yellow. She'd seen hawks before, photographed in books and magazines. He looked just like one. But on the subject of predators, the escaped mobsters could send more men any minute. Patti decided to try to think more like Liz.

She backed off, wolf in tow. "We didn't ask for your help and Sis and I don't owe you anything, so we're just gonna—"

"Wait, listen." To her surprise, he dropped to his knees and slapped his hands together. His cloak fluffed out behind him in a rather undignified manner. "You have so much potential. Please, _please_ be my weapon partners."

She blinked, her mouth curling into a question. "Yer what?"

"My father represents and oversees the recovery of lost or corrupted souls in this world. To do this, he enlists meisters to wield soul-reaping weapons against those who would seek to defy the natural order."

It was a practiced monologue, and Kid recited it so rapidly that it was completely lost on Patti, who was already overwhelmed by the night's events thus far. She stared past him until she went cross-eyed, but he never even noticed, continuing without the slightest hesitation.

"Though I am on my way to becoming a Reaper myself one day, I need weapon partners in order to train and better myself. I've avoided them this long because there have been none that suit my needs, but the moment I saw you transform, I knew. I need you."

He wiggled his way over to her, still on his knees, and grasped one of her hands. She refocused her eyes. Liz gnawed playfully on his shoulder, unsure yet as to whether Kid was a real threat, and he bravely ignored it. "Please be my weapon partners."

She yanked her hand out of his. "Hang on. Huh?"

He folded his hands, pleading. "I've always wanted to create weapons to my _own_ specifications. If you work with me, I can make you stronger."

Her lip curled. "We don't need to be stronger."

"But why pass up the chance?"

"We don't want it. We don't even _wanna_ be…" She looked sharply at Liz.

The wolf had ceased tugging on their rescuer's shoulder with her teeth. Her eyes flicked between her human sister and Kid, lost and unable to understand. Patti made a quiet fist at her side.

"You don't want to be…what?" Kid asked, and somehow his voice was so soft, it wasn't even a prompt. It felt more like an invitation.

As her mouth breathed the word, her fist broke a hole in a nearby crate with a crash that drowned it out. Startled, the wolf scrambled out of the warehouse. Patti started off in pursuit but came to a stop at the crumbling opening in the wall where first the remaining able-bodied mobsters, and now Liz, had fled. The morning beyond was cold but rosy, and the wolf skittered into it and vanished, leaving them both behind her.

Kid appeared at Patti's shoulder without a sound, his eyes gauging the back of her head.

"Cursed," Patti repeated quietly. She sank to her knees on the gritty concrete floor, her short hair bobbing, bangs falling over her eyes. "We don't…we don't wanna be cursed anymore."

Anger kept tears from slipping out of her eyes. She hadn't cried in so long. She wasn't about to start now, in front of this stranger.

"Then I'll break it."

Patti turned her head just slightly.

Kid held one thumb to his chin, which seemed to be a habit of his, and gazed off into some invisible horizon. He repeated his statement, drenched in self-assurance. "I will break your curse. Of course, you'd have to tell me who cursed you and precisely how it happened. Basically everything you know. Then I'll cross-reference it in my father's library and see if we can find the culprit. Was it a witch's curse? Generational? Was there a motive?"

She jerked to her feet and walked away. "I gotta find my sis."

"Good idea, the two of you are best together." He skipped to keep up, unable to decode the hint of dismissal in her voice. "I've never met the Wolfman, of course, but I've heard about his powers. The shape of his soul changes along with his physical form. It's the same for the both of you, whether you realize it or not. So if you know what triggered that change…"

She glanced back at him as he babbled. "You really think you can break it, huh?" she said, not especially optimistic. Her eyes sought the familiar patterns of pawprints and scrapes against the mud and concrete. She knelt to better examine the signs.

"Of course I can. My resources are endless." He gathered his cloak as he walked, brushing dust and debris away with bony hands. "I'm a little surprised you didn't pick up on that earlier when you mugged me. I am the son of Lord Death." He held out a hand, just as he had to the wolf. "You may call me Kid. Death the Kid."

She granted him a rare, receptive smile and took the offer, lacing his fingers in hers the way she did with Sis. "Alright. Come on, Kid."

* * *

No one saw his face twice.

He liked to keep it that way. He had become accustomed to wearing the mask for long periods, but this was a new society—one where you had to be visible sometimes. Still, by the time it had come for him to shed his mask and active role as Galf Lunard, High Priest of the Moon, he had become an old man. The type of person no one looked at twice. And exactly the type of person he needed to be.

"Excuse me, young man. May I trouble you for a minute?"

He wore the soft sandals of someone accustomed to shedding all footwear out of respect for any bit of earth that was deemed holy. He was not wearing his cloak today, holding his wrinkly hands clasped behind his back like a child.

The younger man's fingers fumbled with his lighter, sparks spraying across his grubby black suit, not bothering to look at him. "Leave me be, gramps. Had a long, stressful night."

"Oh, I know," Galf said sweetly, "I couldn't help but overhear your troubles."

"Overhear? I wasn't talking to no one." Now, as a thin line of smoke announced a small victory, the mobster looked away from his task, shoving his silver lighter back in his pocket. He didn't see Galf at first. No one ever did.

"No? Ah. Perhaps that's the wrong word. I must have found out about it when I followed you from the warehouse." The mask tipped into full, frightening view. The man took a step back, disconcerted. "You were babbling quite freely to yourself. I wanted to ask you about the wolf," Galf continued.

"The wolf?" The thug stuttered, then understood. "The wolf. Those witches. What do you know about them?"

"' _Witches'_." Galf gave a murmuring laugh, which only served to unnerve his quarry further.

"Look, I don't want any trouble. Not from witches, or…wolves, or whatever."

"Don't worry. The wolves aren't what you should be worried about." Galf pulled his hands out from behind his back as he darted forward, the white curve of a knife clearly visible in a flash of sunlight. "I am."

The young man swore in a stutter, one hand flying to the concealed handgun in his back pocket. The aged priest shot past him, leaping from box to dumpster, from dumpster to brick wall, and from wall to the fire escape ladder behind his target.

The man's hands rose carefully into the air as the sharp metal found the soft flesh of his neck, cigarette tipping, forgotten, from his nerveless lips. Galf wasn't actually tall enough to reach his throat, but he hung sideways with his legs wrapped tightly around the fire escape ladder, and there was no one around to know any better. He was nothing to be underestimated.

"Oh no, oh no," the guy whimpered, along with a stream of mild obscenities. "Oh, damn. Is that weapon alive?"

"Actually, it's quite dead," Galf responded pleasantly, tickling the edge of the blade up and down the man's jaw. "But no less sharp for it. Would you like to tell me what you saw now?"

"I dunno, man, we were just supposed to find the girls and sink 'em. I was just doing what I was told."

"What did you _see_? What happened?" Galf pressed, both his question and his knife.

"W-we only found the one girl and her wolf…but then…they…switched. The wolf—the wolf turned into the sister. A shapeshifting witch, I guess. They're both witches. The other one, too, she turned right away."

"Right away? The older one—she turned into a wolf right away?" Galf asked excitedly, pulling the knife away.

The thug knew better than to turn around. "Y-yes? I swear!"

"Excellent!" He started to chortle halfway through the word, but under the mask, it came out as more of a dry cough. "Right on schedule."

"You know about the wolves? The—the girls?" The man swallowed.

"I should." He clambered up the back of the metal ladder, sandals bent around the rungs. He leaned away, gripping the solid upper half, and wrapped one hand around the bottom part of the ladder, which was eager to meet with gravity.

The mobster made the mistake of turning to look up at the grating noise. Galf wrenched the fire escape all the way down with deadly force.

He climbed down the ladder and stepped off onto the body casually, pressing a heel into the still-faintly glowing end of the abandoned cigarette. The ribbon unwound from behind his head as he unmasked himself, staring down at the corpse.

He turned the mask over. "Forgive me," he murmured. "He was unworthy. Surely you would have seen that."

The face of the moon stared up at him, expertly carved. He tipped the mask, studying the grooves of its toothy grin and lidless eye, the pupil of which was emptied so the wearer could look at the world as the moon did.

"God of the moon," he prayed, stashing the crescent knife in his pocket sheath, "your daughters have begun their journey. Guide me to them. Let a new era of priests and worshippers begin."


	3. The Sun at Night

**Chapter 3 - The Sun at Night: An Untold Story?**

* * *

Liz woke on her side, her limbs tangled and jutting beneath her. For once she was sure she had been sleeping as a wolf, as she'd been spared consciousness through the transformation back. Through heavy eyelashes, she stared at the slender curve of her arm in front of her face, not wanting to leave the comfort of wherever Patti had found for them to crash. It was an actual bed, something Liz hadn't experienced in a couple months. Couches, yes. Cots. Fairly comfortable heaps of newspaper, even. But usually, if there was a bed, Liz insisted it go to Patti, even if she was a wolf when they found it.

Which she always was.

Liz bolted upright, taking in the room in the hopes of finding her sister quickly. Some trashy motel. One ancient-looking TV, two beds, two adjacent windows, three doors—only one was an actual exit, the rest were likely a bathroom and closet. And between the beds, which struck her as bad taste in interior design, was a chair. The person sitting in it must have dragged it there. And whoever they were, they sure weren't Patti. Liz's expression darkened and she felt a trace of the wolf stir inside her.

"Where's my sister?" she demanded, too angry to be ignored. She was real and present and ready to fight.

The boy had already been regarding her with a curious but not entirely offensive expression. He tossed a finger in the direction of the bathroom door just as a black nose edged it open from the inside. Patti emerged on all four paws, a plastic bag of ice clenched in a victory smile.

Liz was so relieved to see her she broke character and snorted. "Ice?"

The boy shrugged, standing. "It was free."

She turned her attention back to him with a newly polished glare. "We mugged you!"

"Patricia, back into the bathroom," he scolded the wolf. Patti ignored him, shaking the six-pound bag with vicious intent until the ice spilled out of it and skittered across the room. "Ah! See, now look what you've done! You've ruined the ordinary symmetry of this room. I worked so hard to arrange it properly."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Paying for the motel," he remarked idly, moving around the bed to collect the shattered pieces before they melted. Patti tore at the plastic with her paws, spilling more and more shards and scooping up mouthfuls to crunch on.

She frowned at the unimpressive surroundings. "I thought you were rich."

"Well, you did steal my wallet," he commented, still bent over the floor. "It's Kid, by the way, Death the Kid. I don't think we were formally introduced."

"I know who you are," she snapped, which was a lie, because she'd forgotten all about the little ID card with the elegant-faced boy staring grimly out of an even haircut and expensive custom suit. Even forgotten about the three white stripes in his hair, which was the most pretentious and self-indulgent looking bleach job she'd ever seen—and she was from New York.

Patti sent another spill rippling into Kid's range. He grimaced. "Ugh, Patricia. This is why I told you to stay in the bathroom."

"No one tells my sister anything, pretty boy. And you still haven't explained what you're even doing here."

Kid refused to cease his pointless task. As long as the ice was spilling, he would be there collecting it and taking it to the bathtub, where he could safely arrange it. Liz rubbed her forehead, already irritated by it.

"If you must know," he answered, with his back to her as he worked, "I'm here to break your curse."

All of her critical thoughts went silent for a minute and she was aware of her heart thudding in her ears. "How do you know about that?" she rumbled.

"Patricia liked what I had to say, so she let me rent this place. Basically, the deal is, if you two become my weapon partners, I break your curse. Or, alternatively, _when_ I break your curse, you become my partners. It can go either way, really. That's what makes it so beautiful. Either way we're all happy."

"Wait, wait." Liz pressed one hand to the bridge of her nose. "We're not weapons."

"According to subsection three-twenty-seven on the Death Weapon/Meister Academy student handbook, which was written to settle a lengthy debate about whether or not a skilled monkey displaying signs of soul sense was fit to be a meister, you qualify. Any human or animal whose soul is capable of changing into a more powerful form is welcomed as a weapon by the DWMA because of their ability to take on souls. But even disregarding that, I want you."

Liz listened to his explanation, sitting back on the bed with her eyebrows furrowed in a disbelieving line. This rich boy thought he was their dream come true. She and Patti would never be able to work with him, let alone put up with his strange behaviors—which were, at the moment, _still_ dedicated to clearing the floor of ice, despite Patti having wandered away from her mess and fallen asleep in the corner.

"I don't get it," she said, crossing her arms. "If we only qualify as weapons when we're wolves, and you break our curse, then we won't be weapons anymore."

He shrugged. "Then at least you won't have any excuses to make trouble on the streets, right?"

She closed her eyes so he couldn't see them roll in their sockets. "You're cute." She didn't believe him.

She couldn't afford to.

"So, Patricia wanted to leave the storytelling to you," he finished, finally dumping the last armful of ice into the tub. He brushed the dust off of the knees of his finely ironed suit pants and slicked water away from his hopelessly damp sleeves. "Dammit. Dammit."

"I don't think that's gonna happen," Liz mused, watching his fidget angrily with this clothing.

He looked up. "No?"

She rose with the grace of an aging queen, her eyes locked firmly on his. "No. I think I'm going to take Patti and leave now."

"Well—" To his credit, he stopped himself from grabbing at her arm, gesturing instead to the sleeping wolf. "The thing is, your sister already agreed to it. And you seemed alright with it too. When you were like that."

"When I was—" Liz's voice pitched to a shriek for the barest of instants before she locked her indignancy away with her anger. "You can't base my ability to make decisions off my behavior when I'm a wolf!"

Though, that was something to think about. She tended to be a violent wolf. And the fact that both she and Patti had fallen asleep in Kid's presence, even with all their animal instincts…

"Elizabeth, please," he said. Rich people never understood how painfully condescending their own words were. "I can help you."

"What makes you think we need it?" she snapped.

He was quiet. He glanced at Patti, who regarded him with one blue eye, prying itself open at the sound of raised voices. "You're losing time as a human," he said quietly.

"What?" she demanded.

"She told me. In not so many words. You turned into a wolf too quickly this time."

"I was—upset. We were being hunted—you were there, weren't you, you bastard? I remember smelling you. You saw all the guns."

"Curses like this often have a time limit. It's not really a surprise. You two used to be able to talk to each other between morning and night, didn't you? But that time has gotten shorter and shorter. It's true, isn't it? Now you barely see each other."

"Shut up." Liz sank down next to her wolf sister. "It's not true, it's just that...we've been so stressed."

"If you don't do something about it now, eventually the both of you will be wolves forever."

"God...stop it," she murmured, resting her hand on the silver neck fur.

Death the Kid took a step toward her. "Dammit, think of your sister."

She turned a glare on him that could have melted all the ice he'd dumped in that hotel bathtub and a few glaciers beside in a millisecond. "I always am."

Patti struggled awkwardly to her feet, eyes tipping between the two warring teenagers as though unsure of to which she owed her allegiance.

"I need the curse. I need it to protect her." Liz dug her fingernails into her palm, feeling her lip curl into the memory of a snarl.

"If you join with me, you won't. You won't need it. You'll be able to protect her on your own. I can promise that." He spread his hands. Patti's tongue flicked out to lick his fingers as she sniffed at his palm.

"Patti, stop that. We're leaving." Liz stepped past her and toward the motel room door, but her wolf sister remained.

Kid giggled involuntarily as Patti nudged his hand with her nose right before he cleared his throat and his voice went serious again. "Where will you go? Spend another night on the streets? At least stay until morning. I can take care of everything you need."

"You're just saying that because you know I won't be here in the morning," Liz muttered. "Patti! Now!"

Patti was startled by the shout. Her head ducked away from Kid as she looked at Liz in confusion. Liz realized three things at once: first, that if she left now, Patti would just find Kid again as soon as morning came. Second, they had the power to leave at any time. Thirdly, she was no longer sure whether Patti even recognized her own sister when she was as a wolf.

Liz swallowed as the best course of action fought a war against her pride and distaste. "You know what, fine," Liz growled, trying to make the choice her own. "We'll play your stupid game. You wanna break our curse, you'll have to find the man who cursed us."

"So who is he?" Kid asked, finally sitting back down, his hands meeting in his lap. All signs of tension in him dissolved, as if there'd never been a disagreement. Patti tested the air with her nose for a minute before placing her front paws decidedly on the bed and hopping up onto the springy mattress only to curl up next to their benefactor, notably within petting range.

Allowing herself a private moment to mentally describe Death the Kid with every filthy word she'd ever seen graffitied on the back end of a bridge, Liz maneuvered the bed to lie down on Patti's other side. It was a queen mattress, so she didn't come into contact with any of the silky gray fur. She saw Patti's head shift to regard her before they both settled.

"We don't know who he was," Liz muttered. "Some creep."

"How old was he?" Kid reached behind him to retrieve a pen and pad of paper from the nightstand, clicking the pen almost ten times—she counted eight—and scribbling a line on the paper to make sure it worked.

Liz squinted, as though the memory would become clearer. "It was hard to tell. He looked like an old guy. But he moved like he was young."

Kid scrawled something down. Or at least drew another scribble. "Do you remember his face?"

"He had a cloak and hood on at first, but yeah, we knocked it off him. He had a round, kinda rumply face. Really fat nose and lips. Bald as hell."

She gave him a minute to laboriously write down _bald as hell_ before starting the story in earnest. And, strangely enough, talking about it made the memories clearer in her mind.

* * *

Everything was fine until Patti laughed.

The man cowered at our feet, his own knife turned on him. It was a pretty thing—the face of the moon was shaped into the hilt, and the grin was a blood groove. Very artistic, looked like an antique. I just remember because I _really_ wanted to take it from him. He had angry fear all over his face, the kind that leads to a lot of swearing, like that'll improve the situation. But I had the knife, and it was the kind of knife that led to cooperation.

"Maybe next time you should try robbing someone a little closer to your own age, gramps," I said, letting the knife play through my hands. It had been a cloudy night, but the sky opened just then, just in time to light the blade up like a flourescent bulb.

And Patti laughed. A low, toothy laugh, deep in her throat, more threat than humor.

And above us, the moon was laughing along.

The failed pickpocket fell on his face so quickly I thought for a second that he'd died of fright, right there, his arms outstretched across the ground in the grim stiffness of rigor mortis. But then he wailed out.

"Oh, holy ones, please forgive a faithful one's stupidity," he begged.

I looked at Patti, who raised an eyebrow back.

He continued, "I see now my mistake and my only wish now is to serve you until the end of my days."

"Aw, hell yeah!" Patti cheered, which caused the man to lift his head. Before I could do anything, he was on his feet—he was way too fast for a guy that old, I tell you—and his fingers were wrapped around our wrists like bony vices.

"Hey!" I fought his grip, but he was supernaturally strong. I should have known something was wrong with him then. "Let us go before I make you!"

"Come, come, there is much to prepare. You will be given new robes and new identities." He was muttering as he dragged us forward, out of the alley, but before he could get us there, I took the knife and stabbed it into his forearm.

He let go so fiercely that the weapon went with him. He backed away from us, clutching his impaled arm, seemingly unoffended. "I can see the both of you need some time to decide," he said nervously. "My apologies. I will seek you out again once you have made your arrangements."

And we thought that was it. He vanished, I made sure Patti was OK and mourned the loss of that awesome knife, and we were no worse off than we had been before he'd come along. But then, a week later, he did come back with his arm bandaged, during the day this time. We were in a totally different part of the city, the edge of Brooklyn, so I don't even know how he found us. He tried to haul us off again, but we were ready for it.

"Why will you not come with me, holy ones?" he asked.

"Because I'm smarter than that," I snapped. "Where do you think you're taking us?"

"I thought you knew. But, of course! You wouldn't. Your human vessels know nothing of the Order. Allow me to explain." He straightened, folding his hands, becoming one with his stupid purple cloak. "I am the last remaining priest of the Order of the Sun and Moon. All the followers before me either lost the faith or passed on waiting for your return."

"Our return?" Patti asked. She always knew the right questions.

"I realized it when I saw your face," he said, trying to appear humble. "You are the living human incarnation of the moon. And so you, my dear—" at this, he tipped his head to me, "—are her sister, the sun."

That's when I knew he'd lost it. Totally old-age, fanatically-obsessed, creepy-old-man lost it. Patti started laughing again, but that stopped when he bowed at her feet and caressed her leg with one hand. With righteous pride, I watched her kick him away viciously. No one touches my little sister.

"Have you got your celestial bodies crossed," I muttered. "We aren't anyone's human incarnations, idiot. We're just the girls who are about to beat you up and take your money."

And we might have done that. I mean, he deserved it for being a creep. But he didn't even fight back, and he didn't have much on him, not even the knife (to my disappointment), so we went easy and left him to crawl away on his own. We didn't hear from him for another week. When we did, when we saw him again, I was ready to kill him. I didn't know how he kept finding us and I didn't like the idea of having a crazy stalker. But he was different that night.

"If you're so convinced you're not the sun and moon," he said, "let's see how well you do without them."

That was when he cursed us. He unsheathed his knife and pointed it at us, and before I could leap it him it started to glow, and I realized he'd cut us off in a back street on purpose. We were both blown backward by some magic force, held back against the wall, as he pointed at both of us individually and spoke.

"Your sun will be the moon," he said to me. "You who claim the highest intelligence will be reduced to nothing more than a dumb animal." Then, to Patti, "Daylight will own you. Oh restless girl, you will not control your own movements, and you will remember every second you lose."

He lowered the knife and we both dropped to the ground as though the wind had been knocked out of us. He folded his cloak around his shoulders as he backed away with one last addendum. "I will face my punishment for this when you remember your true selves and come to me. If you do not, the day will come when your human vessels will forget each other's names and walk the earth forever as wolves."

We didn't think anything of it.

But then I transformed for the first time as soon as the sun rose.


	4. Responsibility and Threat

**Chapter 4 - Responsibility and Threat: A Wolf Running Alone?**

* * *

By the time Liz had finished her story, the ice in the bathtub had mostly melted away and she was able to take a shower while Kid went over his notes. She told her wolf sister to watch him and left them alone in the room, only because she was well aware that Patti could take care of herself.

But now she went on alert as she wrapped a towel around herself and wrung her hair out over one shoulder. She could hear male voices in the room, and only one of them belonged to Kid. The other was older, less formal, and...squeakier? She cracked the bathroom door open.

Kid stood in front of what appeared to be a glowing projection that rose through the room like a pillar, heedless of the furniture. In the center was a masked figure, a shadow made corporeal.

"Dad, I can do this," Kid was saying, one hand flapping the notebook at the image.

The black shape bobbed in response. "Oh, I trust _you_ , Kiddo! I just don't trust _them._ Werewolves known for a lot of things, and being passive isn't exactly one of them."

Liz remembered passing through clips of Lord Death on television before. She'd always assumed, as she changed the channel, that the representation she was seeing was more of a child-friendly mascot and never the real thing. His voice was strident, chipper and inoffensive. She could see where Kid got his condescending side.

"I'll keep myself out of trouble." Kid set the notepad on an end table. "They're not like that. You'll see someday. I really do appreciate the help, Dad."

"No problem, son! Now, be responsible with that information. I'll keep digging away—or get Death Scythe to do it, anyway," he added in a still-bubbly mumble.

"Thank you. I'll see you back in Death City soon." Kid motioned with his hands and the hologram dispersed, scattering in shards and briefly illuminating all corners of the motel room.

Liz emerged from the bathroom, arms folded across her toweled chest. Kid sat on the bed with his back to her. He didn't move to turn around until she spoke.

"So I guess you really are Death's son." She leaned against the bathroom door until it clicked shut behind her. Patti, still asleep one of the beds, blinked her eyes open and rolled them towards her without otherwise moving.

Kid stood and straightened, revealing the perfect picture of a rich boy as he looked at her. His clothes were perfect, his face betrayed nothing. "Of course. I didn't lie about that. Or my connections. Possibly the only reason I'm sure I _can_ help you is my father's extensive reach. And library."

"Look, Kid." She fixed him with a solid glare, a little upset that he wasn't even slightly affected by the sight of her in a towel. This guy was _good_. "Lord Death may be little more than a fairy tale in New York, but I know who he is and what he does. He's the one who collects wayward souls. He sends his soldiers in when the police can't get to you. So don't lie to me. Is that what you came here to do? To get me and Patti off the streets, collect our souls?"

Concern flickered onto his face, hiding somewhere in the dent between his eyebrows and in the sudden break of his lips. "You don't have to worry about that," he said, head bobbing backward. In shame?

"I think I do!" She gestured toward the wolf. "I'm not going to drag my little sister after you and straight into purgatory, no matter what she thinks of you."

"I believe I've made my position clear." Noticing she was awake, he held a hand out for Patti to examine. "I want the both of you, beautiful as you are, to be my weapon partners. You couldn't do that if I was to turn you in."

"Don't touch my sister!" Liz started, but Kid wasn't. His fingers hung six inches from her head, but Patti herself tucked her ears underneath his grasp and licked the heel of his thumb as he obligingly pet her. Liz rubbed her temples. "Damn it, Patti," she muttered.

"We went shopping last night, by the way. Patti picked out some clothes for the both of you." He slid a paper gift bag with an expensive-looking logo on the side toward her. "You look like you could use them."

She raised her eyebrows. "I thought I stole your wallet," she said, gesturing to the crummy motel room.

"You didn't steal my credit cards. Truthfully the only reason we're here and not someplace more accommodating is because no amount of money or status would convince a concierge to let someone lead a fully-grown wolf down their perfectly symmetrical hallways to sleep on one of their beds."

"That's fair, I guess," she conceded.

Kid retrieved his notebook with a spark of enthusiasm. "After you're dressed, we can talk about the addresses my father gave me to look out for your mysterious curse-conjuror."

"We're not finished," Liz snapped.

Kid put his back to her, his head lowered. "I think your position is obvious," he murmured, his voice balanced on a dangerous edge. "Either you eventually become my partners, curse or no, or my father will inevitably send someone else to finish the job I won't."

* * *

For once, Liz was thankful she had stopped growing early after years spent being deceptively tall. Of course Patti still knew her size in jeans. The denim was stretchy and comfortable, and Liz slid her hands into the back pockets as they waited for Kid in the parking lot. She glanced at Patti at her side. The wolf stared straight ahead with her tongue lolling out happily as her ears swiveled to judge the nightly city noises. Every once in a while something new would make her close her mouth until only a fraction of fang was visible and stiffen, but then a second later she would be back to her doofy self. Liz rolled her eyes away.

"Thanks for the clothes, sis," she muttered, patting the wolf's head idly.

She heard a snuffling and then felt the by-now familiar sensation of the wolf's tongue finding her fingers. "Agh, icky," she said, pulling her hand away. Patti smiled amiably at her with black lips.

"All right, let's go, girls," Kid said as he emerged, swathed in a long, twisting black mantle. She blinked at him.

"What's with the getup?"

He glanced down. "Am I wearing it crooked?"

"No, but you're wearing it. So I have to ask again. What's with the getup?"

He preened, letting the cloak billow like smoke. It was made of something that was not quite fabric, like absolute shadow woven into something real, something light as air. "It's traditional reaper garb. No one will bother us as long as I wear it."

"No one will bother us anyway, Batman," she said, smirking. "Patti's a hellhound and a half."

"I want to be professional. If I need to look at police records or other confidential information, I'll need to flaunt my title. People know your face, but they trust mine." He said it as inoffensively as possible, but Liz still frowned pissily at him. He paid no mind.

"Are the stripes traditional reaper garb, too?" she groused.

"The what?" He spun, studying himself. The cape whirled and brushed Liz's legs as she grabbed his head with both hands, stopping him.

"Your hair."

He stared at her. Then the next moment his lip wobbled into a deep frown and he looked like he was about to cry.

Liz pulled away quickly. "Okay, okay, sorry?"

He sank to his knees in a dejected pile. "They really are juvenile and ugly, aren't they? Ohhhh! They show everyone what I really am: a lump of disgusting waste."

"I—those are not the words I want to use..." Liz muttered. Patti ran out her tongue in a laugh.

He fell forward, covering his head with his arms. "Just bury me. Just do it right now. I'm not fit to live." He shook, and Patti closed her mouth in order to sniff at his hair.

Liz's eyes narrowed in confusion. "What kind of talk is that? Why not just dye them out?"

He sobbed. "I've tried! A reaper's immune systems work differently than a human's, it rejects all outside toxins—even something as harmless as hair dye!"

"Ohh, my God." Liz rolled her eyes. Kneeling, she pulling the hood of his cloak up. "There. Now no one has to see them."

"Yet, the stain remains." He sniffled, then gradually stood, his eyes sparkling with tears and/or gratitude. "You're right, though, that is much better. We should be on our way now."

Liz pulled a package of cigarettes out of her back pocket. She exchanged glances with Patti, but the wolf looked away quickly, her eyes catching on something far away. Without so much as a bark she trotted off after it.

"Patricia!" Kid called in surprise, but Liz waved an arm.

"Let her," she said. "She won't go far."

"How do you know?" he asked.

She just grinned bitterly at him. "She's my sister."

"But, well, she's a wolf right now. What if she doesn't come back?"

"Then I'll go look for her. I've done it before." Liz tapped a cigarette out of the pack. Kid watched her light up quietly as they walked, staring so intently that Liz thought to offer him one. But he declined, polite as always.

The first address was a bust. The landlord had no information on that particular previous tenant on account of a couple well-placed "rent bonuses" that had persuaded him to "look the other way" a time or two. This, of course, he hadn't admitted to until Liz's boot was pressed firmly against his collarbone. Kid didn't know as much about what made people _trust_ as he thought he did. What made them trust your face? Sure. What made them trust you not to end their pathetic existence in exchange for information? That was different.

"Could I ask you something?" he said as they left that first apartment complex, twisting the two silver rings around on his fingers.

"Come on, you could totally tell he was hiding something," Liz answered defensively. "I'd say throwing him on the ground was the logical, bloodless solution."

"No, not that. About Patti."

"Oh." Then, warily, "What?"

He pulled both rings off and resettled them on opposite fingers, then his back straightened with relief and confidence. "There are plenty of kids alone on the streets here. Either of you could make it on your own, you especially. In fact, it might be easier. What's kept you together all this time?"

 _Sis._

Liz had a sudden impulse to tighten her grip, but her fingers found nothing in the air. She champed down on the cigarette between her teeth. Patti's voice came to her in a song and she held on to the memory until it faded away.

Kid was staring at her, the both of them still as deer.

She took the cigarette out of her mouth and spoke through a breath of smoke. "Why would you ask me that?" It came out quieter than she expected.

"It just…" he looked down and away. "It seems like the harder thing to do."

When Liz spoke, her own voice was still soft and foreign to her. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about that, when we were younger."

The reaper was silent, sensing this was a rare moment of honesty. Liz considered shutting up but the words came of their own accord, unwilling to cease until she'd explained herself. "But I chose this. I chose Patti. I chose...responsibility. And so did you."

"Me?" Kid gestured to himself.

She nodded. "You could just take our souls. Instead you're carting us around Brooklyn, trying to break a curse we don't even know _can_ be broken. Making the effort other people might not."

"Yes, but…" Kid trailed off.

"It's different, sure, but the principle's the same. You make the tough choices for those closest to you. Me and Patti are sisters, and we're always gonna tough it out together, whether or not you're part of that equation."

Kid's eyes were on the ground. She didn't think reapers could have brothers or sisters, from what she knew. Maybe he couldn't grasp the idea of family bonds. But maybe… "I think I understand," he said softly, looking back up at her.

She tried not to show her surprise. "Well, good."

They turned a corner, and Patti was waiting for them, tail held high in greeting.


	5. Burning Touch

**Chapter 5 - Burning Touch: Reunion and Healing?**

* * *

After three more failed attempts, Liz was ready to head back to the motel room before the curse hit her. It was getting into the silver hours before morning. She leaned against the doorframe outside, one hand rubbing behind Patti's triangular ears.

"Girls," Kid called suddenly. Liz had picked the lock for him, even though her little sister would have been better at it. The reaper had insisted on going in first to make sure everything was safe. Though the air outside was chilly, Liz had already broken into too many disappointments today to argue.

"What?" she asked.

"You should see this. Come in here."

Clicking her tongue for the wolf to follow, she entered what should have been an abandoned building. It was a condemned apartment that smelled like rot and rodents—rather like the motel room, and half of the places they'd ever lived in, she thought with a certain fondness.

Someone had definitely been squatting here, if not recently. Dust was minimal and food packaging littered the floor. A teapot sat on a broken camping stove, bizarrely misshapen and out of place.

It took her a minute to find Kid in the darkness. She could only see him by the stripes in his hair. He was kneeling in front of a lumpy carpet. It looked like he was praying. For a second, she hung back, unsure of whether to disturb the reaper, but he waved his fingers over one shoulder.

"I don't...I don't know what to make of this." He stood back until they were shoulder to shoulder, keeping his eyes in front of him.

She dragged her eyes across the mildewy rug. "Looks pretty typical homeless-Brooklyn to me," she muttered.

"Um, no. Not that." He sighed and gripped the edge of the carpet, meeting her eyes for one warning moment before pulling it away.

The heavy sound it made as he moved it drowned out Liz's terrified squeak. There was a body. Or there had been. It was little more than a skeleton in a tattered cloak. Patti sniffed at it excitedly until her human sister discouraged her by standing between.

"It's violet. The cloak." Kid held up a sample. "Look familiar?"

"This isn't him," Liz said slowly, wishing that she was anywhere but here. "I mean, it can't be him."

"No, it can't be," Kid murmured. "So who is this?"

The girl swallowed. "But this is his cloak."

"Maybe there's more than one. He said he was the last of an Order. Perhaps this is another priest." He scowled. "That's not what worries me, though."

"Oh, yes, please. _Tell_ me what's more disturbing than this," Liz scoffed. It hid the shaking in her voice well.

Kid did not speak _sarcastic._ "What kind of Order doesn't put their dead to rest? Not having a burial is one thing, but...I can tell by the way this body feels that my Father was never allowed to collect its soul. Not in life or even after death."

"Eeeeew, you touched it?" Liz asked, aghast.

"No! The way it feels to me, as a reaper," Kid defended indignantly. "The way it... _seems._ As though the bones are calling out for peace."

"Okay. Okay! Okaayyy. I'm out of here. I'm out! You can just take care of all your _reaper_ stuff and I'll be outside," Liz said, backing away fast. Patti yelped as her sister's heeled boots trod over a stray paw.

In her haste to both exit the building and avoid trampling an innocent wolf, Liz tripped again, this time more decidedly, over another object on the trash-strewn floor. She landed hard on her backside and pulled the item out from under her shin angrily.

It was a face that matched her expression in intensity. She yelped and dropped it.

Kid hurried to her. "Don't touch that!" he said, and then, when it hit the floor, he knelt and grabbed her hand. "Did it burn you?"

"What? No." She stared at it in the dark. "It's...just a mask," she realized, picking it back up. It depicted the sun at its zenith—you could tell by the excitement carved into the features. Orange spikes jutted from its round face like a mane, adding to the ferocity of the hollow, hooded eyes. A wide, merciless grin decorated the jaw.

"Don't!" Kid warned, almost shocking her into dropping it again.

"Why?" she asked, pulling out of his grip and turning the mask around in her hands to study the inside.

"It's...it's not hot?" Kid frowned, then reached a hand toward it. As his finger made contact, he hissed and pulled back. "It's burning."

"Don't be ridiculous, Kid. It's, like, wooden or something." She studied his fingers for him, but there wasn't even a sign of redness. "See?"

"I can't touch it. It feels...powerful." He frowned harder, his eyebrows digging a scowl into his face. "It's magic. This Order...perhaps they were no friend of my father's."

"Really? I mean, your dad's a big fan of masks, right? Maybe this was made for a friend of his."

"It looks more like it was made...for you," he murmured, even more puzzled.

She pressed the mask to her face, but the inside was just as cool as the surface. It was light as wood, but felt more like stone against her skin. The eyes aligned with hers so she could look out at Kid's worried expression. Cautiously, she pressed a finger to his forehead, and when he didn't flinch beyond a curious blink of his bright golden eyes, she smoothed out the skin between his eyebrows. "Your face will stay like that. And you reapers are immortal or something, right? It'd stink to get stuck with the eternal unibrow of judgement."

"Sis?"

Liz froze, her thumb still pressed into Kid's forehead and the other hand supporting the mask against her face. "Oh, God," she whispered. "What time is it?"

It was a rhetorical question. The light of sunrise was already creeping through the broken windows.

Pulling the sun's likeness away from her, Liz turned. Patti stood to her right, still crawling on her hands and knees and trembling the change away. The fear in her eyes felt more real than the sight of her did. The mask fell to the floor.

"No, wait," Kid said urgently, his black oxfords scuffing against the grimy cement floor.

"Sis!" Patti held her arms out and Liz launched herself toward her sister.

There was a confusion of limbs and altered vision and she shot past her target, crashing against the stone floor and shuddering away the dream of being human. She tried to remember why she was upset. This—this wasn't fear. Her nails clicked against the floor and she could sense grief radiating from the people nearby, but she couldn't place why. She looked into the closest one's eyes.

The bright blue shocked a human word back into her brain. _Patti._ Patti was her sister's name. The girl was her sister. Liz clung to her humanity even though outwardly she'd already been changed.

The other—a boy? He smelled like death—retrieved an object from the floor and said something she couldn't process. Patti, Patti, sister-Patti made pitiable sounds in return and Liz contemplated going to her side. She couldn't shake the idea that she had been the one to upset Patti.

The smell of smoke—no, burning flesh—distracted her. The death-boy was approaching with his hands held out in front of him, balancing something between them. She yelped in confusion. He was the source of the scent, but he gave her no visible reaction to pain. She felt herself backed against a wall and her face twisted into laced teeth and wide eyes. Who were these people, where was she?

She felt something drop onto her head.

"Sis? Sis!"

The floor was cold. Liz groaned as she struggled onto her elbows. Kid was kneeling in front of her face, his lips pursed. His hands were around the back of her neck, but he pulled them away as she came to.

"I thought so," he muttered, straightening.

"Thought what?" she blinked angrily at the floor. "What are we still doing in this dump?"

A pair of arms shot around her waist, pushing her onto her back. A mass of feathery blond hair pressed into her stomach. "Oh, my God, Sis. You're back!" a tight voice choked around the fabric of her shirt.

"P-Patti." Liz accepted the embrace immediately, looking wide-eyed at Death the Kid above her. "Back? What just happened?"

"It has to be touching you. Careful not to knock it off," he said, tapping one of the stripes in his hair. Her hand shot to her temple reflexively and met with the cool edge of the sun mask. A ribbon held it loosely in place, tied at the nape of her neck.

Liz blinked again, trying to make sense of her broken wolf memories. "...What?"

Patti looked up from where she'd been crying into Liz's blouse, and oh, God, it was so good to see her face again, tears or not. She was smiling despite the anxiety behind her blue eyes. "You went all wolf, but Kid thought the mask might have something to do with the curse, so he made you put it back on."

"Am I—am I...?" Liz drew her hands gently down her own face.

"Uncursed?" Kid provided, folding his arms underneath the black fabric of his cloak. "Well, I guess we'll see. Just don't lose that mask."

"I don't believe it." She sat up, holding Patti close. Her human sister. "You really came through, Reaper."

Kid shook his head. "We still don't know the cause. We're not done yet. It's nothing."

"No, it's not." She reached toward him. "Let me see your hands."

"I—" His mouth pursed itself shut and he reluctantly slid his left out from under the cloak. She grabbed his wrist, flipping it palm up. The skin was red and blistered with burns, and Kid gave an involuntary hiss as her thumb brushed the wound.

"You were holding the mask," Liz murmured. "You need to get that treated."

"No, it's fine. I'm a reaper. Watch." Revealing his other hand for her inspection, he closed his eyes in a grimace. The flesh of his palms trembled. Streaks of pale new flesh spread out until the burns had disappeared, painted over with new, perfect skin.

Patti leaned into to see them better. "You can heal yourself?"

Grinning pridefully, Kid flexed his newly repaired hands. "Just one of my skills."

"Oh, brother." Liz rolled her eyes.

Giggles spurted out of the already emotionally-compromised Patti, and for a moment the two sisters fell into each other, laughing forehead-to-forehead. The idea that they were going to be all right, and together, greeted them quickly. Laughter elicited tears of indiscriminate joy as they helped each other to their feet. Death the Kid backed away, his cloak dusting the floor.

"What are you wearing? Is that what Kid bought you?"

"Sis! I picked it out!"

"I know! It's freaking adorable. God, you're getting tall. How long has that been going on?"

"I haven't stopped growing yet. Not like you! I'm gonna be the tall sister!"

"Well, not yet, ya shrimp." Liz knocked the sun mask down onto her face and wiped her eyes behind it.

"Don't worry, Sis, you'll always be taller than me when I'm a wolf," Patti pointed out. In unison, they turned their twin smiles toward Kid. He'd retreated to the door to give them more privacy. They stared at him in awkward elation until he coughed and cracked it open, gesturing outside with one hand.

"Shall we? There's still, you know, a body over there I should get to reporting."

Not even ghosts could bother Liz now. Not when her sister's hand was clutching hers tight enough to break. She'd forgotten all about the corpse in her state of elation.

Kid had done this for them. She couldn't yet believe it.

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go."


	6. Doubt and Violence

**Chapter 6 - Doubt and Violence! A Wavering Kid?**

* * *

"Right, right, I'm sure this will be enough information. I'm glad you brought this to my attention, Kid. Good for you!" Lord Death said with his usual buoyancy, his large hands aimed at his son like a pair of white pistols. "That's my boy, solving mysteries like some big famous detective!"

"Please, Dad," Kid sniffed, immensely flattered but disinclined to show it. "Do you know who the body belonged to?"

"I have my suspicions. But this is a huge lead, Kid. Don't sell yourself short! At least some good will come of this mission."

Kid was saying "What do you mean?" before he'd fully processed the offhand comment.

"Ahh, err, well, Kiddo...there's a thing we have to talk about. And I wish it could wait," his father said apologetically. "But it's about those two werewolf girls."

The two girls in question had decided to remain at the motel rather than accompany him back to the squatter's apartment to report to his dad. Kid couldn't blame them; they'd already handled themselves well for people unused to hanging around death. Even a couple of full days in each other's company wasn't enough to convince them Lord Death needed to _see_ the body in order to understand.

Plus, Patti had let him know that no matter how much Liz denied it, she was extremely afraid of ghosts.

"Dad, I don't want to hear it." Anger clouded his face, red hot. "We already talked about this."

"I may have found the guy they're looking for, the one who cursed them. Well, not his location. I had Spirit check up on that story. Turns out he was...hospitalized for a time after their second meeting."

Kid frowned. "What?"

Lord Death slapped a file up against the glass of the Death Mirror so the projection was right in Kid's face. "Do ya think this is him?"

The lines of thin black text described an adult human male, late seventies, bald, one-eighty-two pounds, identification on him found to be false. The photo was a hospital bed.

"N-no," Kid whispered. The subject's face was not recognizable by any means, one eye swollen shut and the nose crooked and broken. His heavily bandaged arm lay on top of the bedspread. The scene was white and bloodless despite the tubes and needles, which spoke volumes about the internal damage the patient suffered. "No…Liz and Patti, they couldn't do something like this. They wouldn't."

"That's how he was found. His ID was false, but his name is probably Galf Lunard, according to what they found on him. He fell into a coma for a few days, but when he woke up, he took his things and vanished." The first photo flicked to the side, replaced by one of folded articles of clothing: a violet cloak, a pair of pants spattered with red brown bloodstains, and a mask. "Kid…it's hard to believe two girls could inflict that much damage. But that's exactly what happened."

Kid's eyes were locked on the mask. It was cut into the shape of the crescent moon, a hideous grin splitting the center. All he could think was _it exists._

Lord Death was still speaking. "Larceny, grand theft auto, there are even murder charges against these girls…and much of this had to have taken place before they were ever cursed. You need to get out of there, Kiddo. They're wolves. Curse or not, they've always been wolves. As soon as they get what they want, they might turn on you."

"Dad, I…." Kid sighed. He turned away, cutting a hand through their connection and dousing it, soft as a flame. The apartment loomed around him, walls seeming to close in. He hurried outside and summoned Beelzebub, making his way back to their motel.

The part of the story where they'd beaten their tormentor—and left him for dead?—was pinned in the forefront of him mind, with all logical explanations doubling back on themselves to point straight at it. "Liz and Patti wouldn't do that," he argued aloud.

 _Murder charges._

He'd never be a real reaper if he couldn't judge people equally.

He wondered when he'd gotten so accustomed to using their nicknames.

The sun was beginning to set when Kid reached the motel room. Inside, Liz Thompson sat cross-legged on the bed, jaw working on a bright piece of bubblegum and fingernails splayed as she painted them a shade of purple that looked unlawful. He swallowed. Since he had no idea where the polish had come from, it may very well have been illegal.

"Liz," he addressed.

She responded only by popping her gum. The mask sat askew over her forehead.

"Where's Patti?"

She looped a thumb toward the bathroom. "She turned. Hour or so ago."

There was a sudden scratching for attention at the wooden door as Patti made herself known.

"So early…" Kid pressed his palm to his forehead.

"Your dad give you any new leads?" she asked, with a certain honeyed suspicion coating the words. She capped the polish and set it aside to wait for the first coat to dry.

Kid let out a breath. "A moon mask. It exists."

Liz sat up straight, and he suspected that she swallowed her gum. Her hand rose to her temple, where her own artifact grinned angrily at the ceiling. "How do you know?"

"Think back. That time you robbed him." Kid's eye twitched mildly with an inner pang. "What did he have on him?"

"Nothing…" she closed her eyes, pulling the mask down off her head. "So money...no weapons...the cape...and then…" her eyebrows squeezed together. "Oh my God, he _did_ have...we didn't know what it was. It looked worthless."

"Well, it would have been, back at that point."

"Gotta talk to you about that," she added, cutting him off. "This mask definitely doesn't turn the curse off. It just kind of suppresses it. Like blocking a hole in the dam with your finger. The pressure just builds. I feel like I'll explode if I let go of this for a second." She pulled the mask tight against her stomach.

"I understand. But I think the real cure lies with the man. His name is Galf. Galf Lunard. That's his current identity, anyway, and that's who we're looking for. And you have to promise me something," Kid said, his voice rising to become a low roar as he stood before Liz.

She looked up at him from under her eyebrows, hovering between her natural states of fight and flight. Her mouth slipped open in defiance, but she answered softly. "What?"

"You won't go after him on your own."

He saw her eyebrows pull down and her lips form a snarl and a _wait just a minute here_ but he pressed on, taking her hands, keeping their gazes locked. "You have to promise me that. You have to trust _I'm_ going to break your curse, and not just give you extra time with your sister."

Her face softened until he couldn't read the expression. She stood, pulling away from his grasp, and leaned against the bathroom door with her back to his in silent contemplation.

He curled his fingers in, already missing her heat. "Liz. Elizabeth...please."

The edge of her face appeared, just her eyelashes and cheekbone and a river of tawny hair beside. "I have to think about it. With Patti. It's not just my promise to make."

"I'm going to ask her, too. I need your word."

She cracked the bathroom door open. "Well, that's just not going to happen right now."

"Liz, please, you have to understand—"

" _You_ have to understand." She threw the door open and Patti trotted out, tail waving a hello as her nose followed new scents on the grungy carpeted floor. Liz faced the reaper. "It's me and Patti, okay? It's always been me and Patti. We always make decisions together. Especially now that we _can_."

Patti sniffed the bedspread as if she found it offensive. She jerked it off the bed, growling when it got tangled under her feet. Locking her teeth in it, she pulled, tearing the rough fabric and releasing a cloud of cheap cotton stuffing. Kid watched her decimate the blanket with a white grin of teeth and heavy paws to pull it asunder.

"I'm going to bed," Liz muttered. "I'll talk to Patti in the morning. Assuming she can still change back."

"...Right." Kid sank to the floor, leaning against the naked mattress.

"And don't move the furniture again. It pisses me off when I wake up in the middle of the night and trip over crap trying to get to the bathroom."

He heard Liz sink into the other bed, but Kid's eyes stayed with the wolf. She was ruining a perfectly good comforter. The symmetry of the pattern was unrecognizable by now, and by extension, the entire motel room would be hopeless until he paid for a replacement. There was no way for him to arrange the furniture that could save it.

Besides that, more items had appeared on the nightstand and scattered on the floor while he'd been gone. Nothing he'd bought for them. Surely they wouldn't have…

Liz turned the light out, and in the darkness, Patti's work took on a more brutal shape, the silhouetted blanket forming bodies and flesh as her teeth flashed and her eyes glowed in savage pride, still ripping, attacking that which couldn't fight back.

For the second time in so many hours Kid was overcome by the idea that the room was going to crush him. He stared at Patti, and Patti paused to look at him out of the corner of one eye, her nose buried in the fatally wounded blanket.

"Please tell me," he whispered to her. "Tell me I'm making the right choice. That helping you is the right way."

She sniffed and turned her face toward him, two silent blue eyes, brilliant in the dark, made angry by the shape of the wolf they hung inside. Her ears flicked to search for his voice.

He sighed and stood up. "I'm going for a walk," he told her quietly. "I'll be back." He needed to get out. If he tried to fix the room, it would piss Liz off—she could turn on him—she wouldn't—

He slung his cloak over his shoulders and escaped the room.

Brooklyn was nothing like Death City. The air was bitterly cold and damp, and the curious lack of bubbly skull decorations made him feel unwelcome. The buildings, though solid, all felt crooked to him. The city was a mouth of uneven teeth. Any show of clean lines was coated in psychedelic graffiti. He missed his father's architecture. He missed bone-white buildings and the Death Weapon/Meister Academy, Nevada's glistening crown. But if he couldn't get used to worlds like this, what use was he as a reaper?

He stumbled down sidewalks, looking for an alley that would make him feel safe. He could see the paths of abandoned old construction, and in some ways he could see places where the city had _meant_ to look differently, and it was making him want to order the job finished—to finish it himself.

Maybe he should. He couldn't leave until the curse was broken, because the girls would never go with him. But, no, that would cut into the time he had to break their curse. He shouldn't be out right now. He should be finding a new lead on this Galf Lunard. But he couldn't talk to his dad, and he couldn't talk to the girls, each because of the other. What use was he? Certainly, he wasn't fit to be a reaper.

He stopped.

The moon hovered in front of him.

His eyes shot to the sky to make sure there was still a face up there, but clouds had long ago shuttered the window to the sky, and the only light he had came from orange street lamps. The alley before him was abandoned, a backside of the city where voices murmured distantly but no one approached. And the moon hung, small and yellow, only a few feet above the ground. Its grin was turned on him.

"The mask," he said in realization. He didn't know how it had come to him. His hands reached for it automatically, to pluck it out of the air.

Just as he had it, he felt the knife go through him and realized it had been an obvious trap.

He wasn't fit to be a reaper.


	7. Dumped!

**Chapter 7 - Dumped! The Search is On?**

* * *

Liz was startled awake, her fingers instinctively pulling the sun mask close. The motel room was dark and felt strangely empty, even though she knew it wasn't. The first thing her eyes noted was Patti's lupine shape, standing on all fours on the other mattress, unnervingly still, her nose pointed towards Liz's feet. The second thing, following Patti's visual warning, was the cloaked figure at the end of her own bed.

Liz shot upright and slammed her shoulder against the headboard before letting out a nervous laugh. "Jeez, Kid, you scared the—" she flicked the bedside lamp on.

The figure was not Kid. It was Galf Lunard.

Patti sprang on him, knocking him to the floor in a flurry of gray fur and violet fabric. He was up and running out the door before Patti had rolled to her feet, and Liz abandoned the bed to follow him, grateful that she'd slept in her clothes. The man tried to slam the door behind him but she kicked it out of the way, her curse-strength ripping a hinge away from the frame. She hurriedly tied the mask's ribbon around her neck.

He was outside, waiting for them, which only unnerved her more. They'd been trapped by him before, yet here he was, sitting on top of a street lamp in a motel parking lot. Patti treed him, circling the post and leaping up to snap at his dangling cloak.

"The time has come, my daughters." He looked down at them in the darkness, his hood obscuring his face. "You must come with me to perform the awakening ritual and become your true selves. I'm sure you want your sister back. Come with me to regain your human forms and become the new priests our Order has always deserved, and after your lives on earth have ended, you will reign eternal in the sky, served faithfully by a new generation of servants."

"We're not joining your stupid cult. Change us back before we come up there and hurt you!" Liz shouted.

He tilted his head in a condescending manner. "You threaten me with bodily harm, yet nothing pains me as deeply as the idea of you stuck on earth with no memory of your identities...and the time limit draws near. Regard me now as you will, masters, but you will be eternally grateful when I—"

"Put a sock in it, you cheap magician. Nothing's gonna make what you did to us OK. As soon as Kid gets back, your ass is going down."

For a moment, he fell silent, as if contemplating. "The boy?" he murmured. "He couldn't get you want you need. I can. He was nothing more than a distraction, a menace to the plan."

"Excuse me?" Liz took a step toward the pole. "He has way more power than you."

"If that was true, I wouldn't have been able to end him so easily," he hissed.

She smirked. "Please. You couldn't take him down. No one can."

There was a moment of silence, then Lunard pulled something out from under his cape. She thought it might be the moon mask until he threw it at her and she caught a folded lump of unearthly black fabric.

Kid's cloak.

Her blood ran cold.

"I've taken care of him. He can't confuse you any longer, and our time grows short," Lunard evoked, his hand reaching out toward both her and Patti. "Surely you've felt it. The wolf inside you rages against the power of the mask. Even now, at night, if you were to remove it for even a second, it would take you."

The cloak still smelled like him. Liz pulled the garment to her face until her hand came away wet and red. The infinite black was hiding a bloody stain. Patti turned away from the pole at Liz's sudden, smothered shriek of distress.

"It will all be over soon." Lunard stood, balancing on top of the lamppost, still with his hand held down in their direction. "Come with me."

Patti showed him her teeth by way of response.

Liz unfolded the cloak until the hem dusted the ground, draping it over one arm. With her other hand, she loosed the ribbon at the nape of her neck. "You know, you old men always act the same. You'll never understand. When a woman says no, she means _no_."

"You don't have another option. You have to come with me now." He sounded less certain, watching her suspiciously.

She belted Kid's cloak with a tight knot around one shoulder, and tucked the sun mask into a fold, keeping one hand on the edge. Her fingers shook. "I've had no other option my whole life. Whenever I don't have a way to go, I _make_ one. We're going to find him. Me and my sister will be back to deal with you later. And we're not gonna be alone this time."

She let go of the mask. It remained tucked safely the fold of Kid's cloak, even as she dropped to the ground and her human form faded away.

"No!" Galf Lunard shrieked, but Liz was beyond human words.

* * *

She ran unquestioning at Sis's side as they followed his scent, the scent of blood. She didn't know why they hunted this prey, only that it was important. Something black had latched around Sis, and despite her most valiant struggles, she could not free herself of it. But when she tried to bite it off, that was when she realized it smelled like _him_ and therefore it was _good._

Their paws pounded the ground, side by side. The scent took them back to paths along the high places, where there were more chances of being discovered by enemies, but tonight they had each other and that was all they needed to be free. She could only tell it was Sis by her scent. She knew in her heart she'd never been able to run with another wolf like this. But she also knew that somehow, before tonight, they'd shared a different bond.

The earth was grim stone, with gasoline as its only permanent captured smell, but his indecision remained as a phantom—he'd come through here, pondering, alone. And soon he'd been joined by another. Someone made of hate, or someone she knew well enough to hate. Either way, her eyes rolled angrily and her tail flagged out a stiff warning. Sis nipped at her ears to calm her.

What she could see was a black stain in the cement, but what they saw didn't matter. All possibility of a visible trail had been eliminated. Somehow the blood had been contained, but it still hung in the air like a mist, invisible to all but the two wolves who sought it.

They followed the hate and blood, because somewhere between those two distinct scents was still _him_. Hate began to smell more like fear with every step. Blood began to smell more like death. She didn't know why this put her on edge. Were they not hunting this scent?

Just as they neared the scent, Patti took a breath into human lungs. While she could still smell the blood, she let her memories dictate the situation to her. One thing became clear: They were standing beside a dumpster that had once been a bright shade of green, and it contained Kid, or whatever was left of him.

Liz was drawn up to her full height, front paws on the rim, but the lid prohibited her from going further. Patti nudged her gently out of the way, drawing a whine from the wolf but no further protest. She wrapped her fingers under the heavy metal and hoisted it high until it clattered against the brick wall behind. Sticking out from under the second lid was a pair of legs in black, blood-stained trousers and expensive shoes.

"Don't be dead," she prayed.

Liz leapt into the bin, and there was a sudden oof! and the legs jerked. The lid jerked with a bang as Kid sat up and hit his head. Patti grinned and threw the other half of the lid away, pulling herself up to perch on the rim.

Kid stared at her. Something about his eyes wasn't quite right, but Patti laughed, in spite of herself. "Kid?" she tried, poking his cheek.

"One. One of you. There should be two. Or eight. Eight is an excellent number," Kid muttered. He flailed his arms in the garbage surrounding him, furious tears beginning to leak out of his eyes. "None of this is arranged properly. How absolutely repugnant!"

"Okay, okay." Patti squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Is this like with the motel furniture?"

"How can you stand there at ease when chaos like this continues to ruin the world?"

Patti stripped the cloak from around her sister's midriff. The material was stiff with dried blood, she realized grimly, but Kid himself looked fine but for similar stains on his own black jacket. The sun mask tumbled out of the fold onto the trashbags. "Jackpot," she muttered, reaching for it. "You're so smart, Sis."

The heat of the mask bit at her fingers before she could grasp it. She gasped in pain and threw the cloak down over it, but even with added shielding, the cloak absorbed the heat too quickly around it. She could still pull the cloak away, but she was unable to use it to pick the ornery object up.

"I can't do it," she realized aloud. "Sis. I can't do it."

But Kid could. He had before.

"You gotta listen, okay?" She said, hopping down into the trash. It was becoming very crowded in the dumpster. Liz stood close enough to Kid to pant into his face, and Patti pushed her aside to gain his focus. "Pick up the mask for Liz."

"What's the use?" he asked miserably. "I've failed before I even get to begin. I'll never be a good reaper like my father. Look at all this garbage. I'm no different."

"Of course you are. We can fix the garbage later. Fix my sister first."

He went limp. Patti could practically hear her sister screeching "Uuurggh! You spoiled brat!" in her ears. But in reality, Liz stood to the side, unable to understand human words, staring unoffended at the grime-coated green walls.

Patti shook Kid's shoulders. "She's gonna be a wolf forever if you don't do something now!"

His eyes remained on the mess and his hands twitched, wanting, needing to sort the entire thing out.

"Kid, please," Patti whispered as a sob entered her voice. "She trusted you."

His lips parted in a sudden breath, and his golden eyes regarded her. Then he looked at the wolf, trying to cancel out the chaos of his own mind. He clawed for the mask as Liz stepped around his hands. Patti grimaced in sympathy, retreating to the wall of the bin as he caught hold and hissed out as it singed his flesh. But he kept hold of it long enough to set it on the wolf's head.

Liz's legs splayed out alongside Kid as she sat down hard, her change something of a fall. "Hi," she said, breathless.

"Hi," he agreed. Then he lifted the mask and she transformed again.

Patti shrieked until he put it back. Liz grabbed the edge of the sun mask and held it solidly, glaring daggers in his direction. "Why did you take it off again?"

"Sorry," he said, sounding absolutely not sorry. "It wasn't on straight."


	8. From Brooklyn to the Skies

**Chapter 8 - From Brooklyn to the Skies: Downfall of the Ancient Church?**

* * *

Liz lifted an arm, allowing Patti to embrace her while still gripping the mask fiercely with the other hand. Kid was still tilting it at different angles against her forehead, even as she snapped "Cut it out! It's burning your hands, idiot!"

"Sis…" Relief pitched Patti's voice. "I thought it was over. I couldn't help."

"It's okay, Patti, everything's okay now." The dumpster had become awfully crowded. Liz rose shakily, balancing on the black bags. "Come on, Kid. You're with us, aren't you?"

He hung his head. "I can't."

Tying the mask around her neck, Liz glanced at Patti, who gave her a nod coupled with a shrug in return.

"Look at this inconsistent arrangement. Chaos like this is allowed to manifest on earth. Not only that, it's commonplace! My father can't come here to do anything about it, and I've just been letting this happen!" He burst into a fresh round of tears. "Just leave me here. This is where I belong."

"Oh, boy." Liz knelt, cupping his face in her hands. She looked deeply into his golden eyes as he blinked back at her, her fingers straying to comb through his dark hairline. He opened his mouth and she shook her head, shushing him. "Breathe…"

"What are you doing?"

She frowned. "I'm checking to see if that jerk gave you any brain damage."

"We can't stay here," Patti said, pulling herself out. "I'm gonna change back any minute now."

"Okay, come on, Kid." Liz locked her hands behind his back, lifting him by his arms, but he remained firmly planted. He was weighty for a skinny kid. Dead weight. It was almost funny. "We gotta go."

"Liz," Patti said nervously.

She glanced back at her sister. "He won't move."

"Get out of the dumpster."

Liz released the reaper. "Patti, we can't give up on him now. He's really come through for us before."

"Just do it!" Patti snapped, and Liz did so, if only to confront her little sister on even ground. As she touched down, Patti gripped the sides of the dumpster with white knuckles, her mouth curving into a snarl.

"What are you trying to do?" Liz hissed. The dumpster shifted with an ear-splitting screech, and only then did she see the curse's energy rippling through her sister. Without a second thought she joined her on the other side, and together the supernatural strength ripped the dumped from its resting place to crash onto its side.

Kid came spilling out, dazed, to slide to a stop at Patti's feet. She loomed over him arms akimbo, her muscles shaking with strain.

"You better get your ass in gear," she shouted, pointing at the reaper, "or I'm gonna kick it!"

For a moment, pure fear kept him frozen. Then Liz threw his cloak at him and he floundered to escape the black fabric.

"Right, come on, let's go!" she said pointedly.

Kid unearthed himself from the folds of his cloak to find Patti reaching a hand for him. She pulled him to his feet with a reassuring grin.

"I found something else out." Kid gestured for them to listen, working at his brow with his thumb and forefinger. "Galf Lunard. That hasn't always been his real name. My Father's been looking for his soul for centuries."

"Centuries?" Liz put in quizzically.

"Centuries," Kid confirmed. "He's incredibly old, at least four hundred years. He must have been using magic to stay alive. He's long overdue for retrieval by my Father—if a soul endures on earth for too long past its...expiration date, it can't help but become a kishin egg."

"What's that?" Patti asked, but Kid shook his head.

"The death of the soul. There's no time to explain fully. We have to find him. Do you know where he went?"

Rolling her shoulders, Patti cracked her knuckles. "I can find him. After all, I know what he smells like. And it's my turn."

The change overtook her then, stealing the rest of the day from her. There was the barest of instants of grounding confusion, then her ears flicked and her head lowered to the ground. She was on the hunt in seconds, nose drawing a line across the earth as she jogged off.

Despite herself, Liz smiled proudly. "That's my sister."

"Hey," Kid said, opening his cloak between his two hands. "Toss me the mask. We'll get there faster."

"You sure?" Liz raised an eyebrow at him, already tugging at the ribbons around her neck.

He gave her a small smile. "Do you trust me?"

* * *

Death the Kid flanked the two wolves, sun mask wrapped in his cloak and tucked securely under his arm. Beelzebub rattled underfoot, gliding over the cemented streets at the heels of the two cursed wolf-girls. Patti lead the way, though both of the wolves were so silver and flawless that he could only tell them apart by their souls. She bounded forward, forcing her nose down every few feet to catch the faintest traces. Sometimes the trail doubled back, but Kid hung patiently with them until it finally ended.

They were lead straight into a brick wall.

"This can't be right," Kid mused. The girls wove around each other, sticking close to the spot where the scent had disappeared. Kid looked around for a door, but there wasn't one apparent this side of the building. Another odd thing was the entire wall was coated in graffiti, save for the exact point where the two wolves now sat, where naked brick was visible in a crooked arch. Kid examined the edges. The drawings weren't just carefully coordinated around the area, they were cut off, as though the wall had been taped up. He traced his finger around the edge and found a slight electric pulse that bit at his fingertip.

"Wards," he murmured.

Liz gave him something between a low whine and a growl.

"I've got this," he reassured her, unfolding the sun mask from its hiding place. "It's a door. It just needs a key."

He could feel the object's indignant heat trying to reach him through the cloak, but he held it up with both hands and tapped the bare face to the false brick. Something clicked, and the brick wall dissolved. The wolves hurried through, Kid quick to follow.

The noises of Brooklyn vanished. In place of sirens, shouts and angry cars was a steady thrum of wind against settled stone, every click of claws echoing tenfold around the high-arched sanctuary. Rows and rows of pews leaned forward to observe the clear glass front, where the stars drew every contour sharply in silver light. The sky had swallowed them. The yellow edge of the moon slid into view as he realized the monastery they stood in was turning, suspended in midair. A great power moved the building, singing somewhere beneath them. Or possibly screaming.

Kid slipped the sun mask to Liz.

An altar stood at the end of the aisle, moonlight shining off the artifact that had been laid upon it. Liz spotted it as soon as she was human again.

"That's got to be Patti's mask," she said, starting off for it. Kid touched her wrist, just enough to catch her attention.

"Be careful," he said. "It's probably a trap."

"Oh, it's no trap," came Galf Lunard's voice.

Liz's lip curled. "Gee, thanks, I'm glad you told us! I'm sure we can trust _you!_ "

The man's bald head appeared over the back of a pew as he sat up, sighing heavily. "The mask is for her, I won't stop you from retrieving it. This church is thousands of miles in the air, and there's no one else left inside it but me. We're alone."

"That's not true." Kid stepped forward, between where Galf sat and Liz. She shot down the aisle as he poke. "It's not just magic that keeps this place in the air—it's the souls of the followers that came before you. I could feel them the second I came through that gateway."

"Of course they remain. To be collected like a trinket is an abomination," Galf explained coldly, watching Liz run by without standing. "Lord Death scatters the souls of humans like us. This is the only way to ensure our life's work continues after death."

"But with you," Kid snorted angrily. "You figured, why die at all?"

Liz hurried back, the mask wrapped partially in the extra fabric of her jacket. "It's cold," she murmured by way of explanation as she passed it onto her sister's head.

Now Galf rose from the pew, the creak of his limbs echoing around the chamber as he moved to the middle. "It's true, I've lived a good deal longer than any other human on this earth. There used to be others, but they gifted their own power to uphold my cause. My reason is simple. I needed to teach the old ways to the next generation of worshippers. I never knew I would come across the gods themselves in human form. I thought when my work was done, I could join my brethren upholding the monastery."

"You wouldn't be so eager if you could hear them," Kid said viciously. Both girls looked to him, quizzical. Liz made a face, horrified.

Galf stared Kid down, framed by the altar behind him. "You're one of the damned reapers, aren't you?"

Kid threw a hand out, gesturing at the tiled stone floor where the voices came from. "Their souls are crying. They're sick and they're weary, begging for release."

"That's a lie! Their work is their paradise!" Galf snarled, advancing on them. "The _only_ true paradise!"

"After I finish with you, I'm going to save what's left of them from this hell," Death the Kid promised. "Liz, Patti."

The Thompson sisters flanked him as the priest approached. Galf drew the knife out of his cloak and leapt away as Liz aimed a kick at his wrist. Kid grabbed the ends of his cloak and yanked him back, landing a jab with his free hand into the man's stomach. He just missed the diaphragm and the blow bounced off as Galf retaliated, whipping the knife out against Kid's shoulder and leaping free.

Kid cried out, clutching the place where blood was beginning to paint the torn stripe in his already-ruined suit. Liz and Patti exchanged a glance before taking off after the priest, circling him in a pincer tactic.

"Get back!" Kid roared, causing them both to retreat just as Galf snatched up a heavy decorative candelabra shaped like a trident from beside the altar.

"I hate this," Liz muttered. "He's armed. We can't do anything."

"You're my weapon partners," Kid said, standing. "Resonate with me."

"I don't know how to do that." Liz knew the term, of course. There had been a magazine with an all weapon/meister demographic that had used the term as a buzzword on the cover. She'd opened to the article, expecting sex tips, but was disappointed to learn it was just about trust or something.

"Every weapon can do it. I know you can." He offered his hands to the girls.

Galf hoisted the candlestick above his head and launched it toward them. They broke apart, running between separate pews.

"But we're not weapons!" Patti shouted over the clatter. "Not right now!"

"Then trust me!" Kid answered.

Liz caught her sister's gaze and held it. Slowly, Patti nodded, hand reaching up to the mask. Liz did the same. They dove back toward Kid and threw off their masks in unison.

The chamber lit up in icy blues and greys as her eyes welcomed the darkness. It was different this time because she was not alone. She was made nervous by something she was unable to understand beneath her feet, and comforted by something she recognized drawing close.

 _Do you remember that you're human?_

Liz blinked, conscious of the stone under her paws as she raced around the room, chasing the smell of their enemy. Yes, she thought, I am human. And I am also a wolf.

And now she could remember Kid, too, because he was touching her—not physically, but with his mind pressed against hers, and Patti's beside, the three of them in tandem. She felt Kid working up his courage and power.

"Let's go…" he murmured, his eyes shooting open. "Soul resonance!"

The wolves howled.


	9. Final Confrontation

**Chapter 9 - Final Confrontation! Souls Screaming for Release?**

* * *

They were tangible, or their connection was. The three of them blended. Liz's soul felt like it would burst out of her and take on a life of its own, but it wasn't a terrifying thought because she wasn't _alone._ There was no such thing as _alone._ She was Liz, and she was Kid, and she was Patti. And they were _unstoppable._

They each turned their heads in unison to regard Galf, who stood on the altar, ready to pounce at any that came near. In seconds their cohesive minds determined a plan of attack.

Liz took a step toward him, but as her paw fell on the cold stone she felt something even colder beneath it rushing up to meet them. She stepped back as if to reverse the sensation, but it grew until Patti was aware of it, too. An army bubbled below, roiling until the first soul reached their connection, tentatively brushing against it, asking to be heard. As they affirmed—Kid and Patti outvoted Liz two to one—a mess of consciousnesses flooded into their awareness, speaking in a single stream.

 _SON OF DEATH._

"I'm here," Kid said, his eyes rolling up as the two wolves kept their gazes in the real world to watch for any unexpected moves from the priest.

 _WE CAN GIVE HELP YOU TO END LUNARD. THE MASKS ONCE HAD POWER OF OLD. WE CAN RESTORE THEM. BUT YOU MUST PROMISE SOMETHING IN RETURN._

"Yes?"

 _YOU MUST PROMISE TO RECOVER OUR SOULS._

Galf leapt off the altar, minimizing the distance between himself and Liz in seconds. She yelped and stepped backward until she hit a wall as Galf came nearer, the bloody knife zeroing in on her.

"I will," Kid said, as clearly as if his voice came from all three of their mouths.

 _THE MASKS._

The final words were both a command and a farewell. The consciousness disbanded, still burning coldly under their feet as a reminder. Kid found the sun mask between the pews and snatched it up. It was no longer hot to him, because he and Liz and Patti were resonating, contained within and without the same body.

He threw it towards her. She caught it in her jaws and reared to meet Galf.

The priest was blown backwards across the room as a flash of light and heat exploded around the pews and pillars. Liz Thompson stood, her teeth bared and shining in a fierce and human grin, the mask resting on her collarbone. Fire danced on and around her, from her eyes to her shoulders. Her hair swirled behind her, caught but unburnt by the heat of flame.

Galf had landed closer to Patti. Before he could stop to admire the view of his weapon's new ability, Kid recovered the moon mask for her, tossing it before the man could make a move.

For a moment, as she caught it, Patti was human. Then she was simply not there at all, though Kid could see feel her soul burning hot from where she had disappeared.

The church shook. Even as Galf struggled to his feet, they were all knocked down simultaneously as they heard the stone somewhere beneath them shudder and roar. A lightning crack split the window of the moon in two.

"What's happening?" Liz yelled, fearful that maybe the souls had changed their mind about the deal.

"They were the ones holding the church in the sky!" Kid explained, rising with the help of one of the wooden seats. "Now that they're focusing their power on the masks, it's going to fall!"

"I guess that means we have a time limit," Liz snarled, fire creeping down her arm, "to take you out!" She shot the accumulated blast at Galf.

He lifted one arm, defending himself with his cloak like a vampire. The flames died on the fabric, evaporating. He let his breath out in a laugh as he got back to his feet.

"Even their last ditch efforts can't help you," he said, letting the folds of the violet cape envelop him. "You can't hurt me with what little power that mask has. This cloak is fireproof. And as for you…" he closed his eyes, turning toward Kid in the aisle, but even as the reaper readied himself for the priest to charge, Galf slashed out with the knife. There was a cry and Patti hit the floor, still clutching the mask to her face, a long gash marring her shoulder blades.

"Patti!" Liz shrieked, new fire springing from the mask.

"I can find her all the same," Galf continued, "Visible or not. And even if the church is falling now, that won't matter for long."

"Think again. With your captured souls refocusing their power, all the gateways to this place will be closed. You have no way of escaping!" Kid shouted, pointing. "Surrender your soul before it is lost!"

He crouched over Patti, the knife just barely poking out from the cloak like a needle. "You're wrong. This church has been sacred for centuries, but human essence can only provide so much power. Imagine harnessing a reaper and the very sun and moon themselves. I can keep this place in the sky for an eternity once I take your three souls to power it!"

Kid charged. "Get away from her!"

Flame attacks from Liz forced Galf backwards and Kid helped Patti to her feet and pulled her away.

"I'm okay," she said weakly. Her shirt was torn in half across her blood-painted back. She held the front up with one shaking hand and the mask with the other.

He pointed at the mask. "Does that still work?"

She nodded, half of her face fading like the Cheshire cat.

"Good. Keep out of his sight. Your sister and I can handle him," he told her with a smile that was more confident than he was.

She disappeared, her body leaving his side, which he took as unspoken agreement.

"Get back here, you rat!" Liz hurled fire and insults at her quarry. The pews went up like so much kindling as Galf scurried between them, carving a round path back toward her rather than be forced into a corner.

Kid was waiting to cut him off. Galf ran into him quite unexpectedly, the surprise visible on his face for the sweet moment before Kid's knee connected with his jaw. He fell away, hitting the side of his head on a pew before landing in the aisle, dragging himself away on his hands. Kid put a foot down on the cloak, pinning him there.

"Stop fighting, Galf. You've wasted so many lives already," Kid murmured as the priest flopped over to face him. "Do the right thing for once."

The knife flashed out. Kid leaned back but the slash was a feint. As the blade came back down, Galf rammed it hard into the leg keeping his cloak trapped.

Kid staggered back with a cry as Galf Lunard snatched up the fallen spiked candelabra, wielding it as he stepped onto the altar. He turned to Liz and laughed, raising the makeshift trident over her widening eyes.

The moon mask came out of nowhere to slam into the side of his head. Galf swayed only a second before turning to find Patti flying at him, her mouth open in a wolf smile that soon closed around his throat.

He popped under her jaws, a small explosion—there and then gone. All that remained was his cloak and the soul, a deep maroon. Like nothing Liz had ever seen.

Patti fell. The cloak tangled itself around her and her dive sent her across the tile, fighting the fabric until she righted herself.

"Get the soul," Kid called.

Liz hurried to do so, unable to contain a squeak of displeasure as her hand touched the purple glob, which somehow felt slimy between her fingers despite being made of nothing tangible. Patti was still buried in the purple cloak. Liz ripped it away, only to be confronted by two blue still-wolf eyes.

"Patti?"

The wolf looked at them, violet cloak draped haphazardly over her back and sorrow glistening in her eyes. She took a single step back, the material trapping her.

Liz exchanged Galf's soul with Kid for the moon mask. She held out her hand and Patti, tentatively, sniffed it. She placed the mask on her brow, and this time, Patti's transformation was a dream. She was both human at once and getting there, gradually, as if her beholders missed the exact moment of the change and their eyes had to adjust to her new form. She rose, gathering the cloak over her broken tank top with one hand as the other rose to pull the mask away from her face.

"Kid..." she murmured in soft, sad confusion. "We're still cursed. When we killed that guy...it should be gone, right?" Purple folds cascaded from her shoulders.

Kid had sunk into a pew. He gingerly eased the knife out of his thigh, hissing the pain out in a single breath. The church shuddered beneath them as cracks echoed along the walls, splintering the stone. The glass strained with spiderweb flaws rendering it opaque. "We have to get out of here. Help me…" Kid murmured, rising onto his good leg. He kept the knife with him. Liz dipped underneath his arm and he pulled Patti near.

The floor dipped, almost sending them all tumbling before Kid could shout "Beelzebub, increase!" He pulled his skateboard into existence and as it appeared, it obediently grew until it was 3 times its regular size.

Liz indicated it, dumbfounded. She looked at Kid in cynical disbelief. "You couldn't have summoned an airplane?"

"Hold on to me," he instructed, pulling them onto the board. "Almost…"

The window behind the altar exploded and the wind roared inside. The church crumpled as the roof disintegrated. Kid's foot remained firmly on his skateboard as it burst into the air, planted with reaper magic. The girls clung to his determined grip as they escaped around the falling bricks and glass shards of the ceiling.

Patti called his name but her voice was torn from her in the rush. Liz screwed her eyes shut until the chaotic sounds of collapse faded, then the three of them watched as what was left of the church of the Order of the Sun and Moon crashed into the ocean.

It was a silver night, the moon having hidden itself behind clouds. The ocean roiled in a white protest as the building cracked apart and committed itself to the depths, its final journey lit only by the heavenly bodies it had never worshipped: the sparkling stars.

"Kid, the souls," Liz said urgently, breaking the new peaceful quiet. "We promised."

"Wait," he said simply.

The waters begrudgingly calmed as the last wall sank, only bubbles breaking its surface to announce there had ever been such a disturbance. Then, slowly, a soft glow spread over the area like a balm, brightening as it rose.

"There they are." Kid smiled. He brought up one hand, pointing to the sky with his forefinger and pinky while his arm stretched out toward the watery light.

The first soul surfaced, a warm, blue, reverberating light, leaving the water undisturbed as it slid through. It floated straight to the reaper, guiding by his hand until it hovered in front of his face. Patti leaned forward for a better look, her lips perked into expression of wonder. Liz gave an appeasing smile, but shrank behind Kid's shoulder.

"You have redeemed yourself," Kid told it gently, still smiling. "My father will treat you kindly."

The soul wiggled and absorbed into his cloak, causing Liz to shriek. Patti just grinned at her, grabbing her hand to keep her from falling off the skateboard.

More of them broke the surface, and Kid made a series of gestures with the same arm, waving a circle around them until each soul honed into him and shot straight into the folds of his reaper's cape.

"They'll be safe in here," Kid explained.

"But, Kid, what about the curse?" Patti asked again.

"Yes," he mused. "The curse...it isn't broken, but it has changed."

"What do you mean?" Liz put in, pulling her little sister close.

Kid tested his leg, but his wound had closed completely. He pulled the knife, still clutched tightly in his other hand, into view. "The shapes of your souls haven't changed back. You're weapons. You're standing beside me right now as weapons."

"I do feel different," Liz mused. "Better."

"Stronger," Kid agreed. But as we've seen, you still need the masks to trigger your—"

"I'm not so sure about that," Patti said, pointing. The moon mask sat at the other end of Beelzebub, facedown and wobbling as they flew.

"Patti!" Kid shrieked. "That is an ancient powerful artifact!" He snatched it up and swore as it slipped right out of his grasp. "Son of a bitch! It's cold! Sorry," he added immediately.

Patti caught the mask, shrugging. Liz grinned. "It's all right. She's heard worse."

"And said worse!" Patti chirped, in an absolutely delightful voice Kid could imagine cussing someone out about as easily as he believed a kishin could be redeemed. Then again, it was a strange, beautiful world. Who really knew what was possible?


	10. The Wolves of Death City!

**Epilogue - The Wolves of Death City**

* * *

"So the curse remains," Kid concluded, "because it wasn't the moon priest's soul that powered it. It was this." He held up the knife for inspection. "A soul trapped inside this knife. Most likely belonging to the sun priest. But now, with Galf Lunard's wrath and resentment gone, the girls have complete control over which form they take. Girls?"

By way of demonstrating, Liz and Patti ducked into wolf form and each turned in a small, neat circle before changing back. "Neat, right?" Patti trilled proudly. "And with soul resonance, we can keep our human memories, too."

"They're full weapons now. They'll need training." Kid dragged in a welcome breath of air. The clouds of the Death Room revolved around them like any day would, easing his mind with its familiarity. He closed his eyes and felt the peace of it, sharing the feeling with the two nervous souls buzzing around in resonance with his. Liz was edgy, gripping her sister's hand like a lifeline while her street confidence decorated her face. Patti just had a nervous energy, ready to fight or run a marathon or recover a million more corrupted souls-exactly the mindset she'd need.

Lord Death stood before them with one large hand tapping what might have classified as his chin, his face unreadable as always. "You've certainly done a lot, Kid," he said. "You could have just taken them in and waited for a set of weapons easier to...handle."

"I could have," Kid agreed. "This may not have been the easiest way. But I think it turned out the best." He shared a glance with Liz, just a brief meeting of their eyes, and she nodded back.

"Well." Lord Death began, and his son and the Thompson sisters held in a breath. "I, for one, welcome you to the Death Weapon/Meister Academy."

The three of them let out a sigh in unison.

"There are, of course, a few more things to take care of," Kid added, turning to face the girls. He produced the Order's masks from his cloak and held them out. "Liz, Patti, will you keep these artifacts in your care, and make sure they won't ever be used to evil purposes again?"

"Of course!" Patti said, accepted hers. Liz just nodded, meeting his eyes with a shy smile. She knew what was coming next.

"And, er, ahem," he added, adjusted the skull-faced tie at his throat. "Now that you've been assured there's no threat in living your own lives here...will you be my weapon partners?"

"Hmm, I dunno, we'll have to think about it." Liz winked at Patti, and they leaned into a huddle, whispering back and forth.

"Will there be adventure?" Patti asked suspiciously.

"And more compliments on our weapon form?" Liz added.

Kid stammered. "Y-yes, of course?"

"Then I guess…" Liz drawled, painfully slow. "I _guess_ we'll give it a go. If my sister's all right with it."

"Hmmmm…Yeahhhh." Patti agreed.

Kid fell to his knees in relief, and they helped him back up, laughing.

"Oh, dear," Lord Death chirped. "I see you two have figured him out already."

"He's easy to read," Liz chuckled.

"Like an open book. Hey, do we call you Dad now, or just Principal Death?" Patti inquired innocently.

Startled, Liz gasped and put her hands on her hips. "Patti! You can't just…"

Lord Death shrugged his massive black shoulders. "I actually don't know. Am I the principal?"

Kid groaned. "Dad."

"I built the darn thing, I guess I should be. Anyway, scoot, scoot!" he shoveled his hands toward them, bouncing amiably. "You three should get back to Gallows Manor, settle in. Get used to your new life. Class tomorrow, you better not be late!"

"This is so surreal," Liz said, laughing as they turned toward the pathway leading out of the room.

"Yeah," Patti agreed. "D'you think maybe I'm dreaming?"

"Your eyes are open," Liz observed.

"Yeah, but maybe I'm I'm awake dreaming that I'm asleep. Or—ooh! Maybe I'm asleep, dreaming that I'm awake, wondering if I'm dreaming."

"That doesn't sound very likely," Liz argued, though she'd gotten lost after the first third of that sentence.

Lord Death rested a hand on Kid's shoulder before he could follow them. The boy turned to stare into his father's hollow eyes questioningly.

"Kid," Lord Death murmured. "I'm proud of you. I hope you know that. You have a lot of work ahead of you still. But I'm so proud."

"Thanks, Dad," Kid replied, a smile bursting out with the words.

"Now get on. They'll be lost in the school without you to guide them." Lord Death gave him one last push, and Death the Kid darted after his weapons, slipping his arms into theirs until they were locked in an unbreakable, marching line.


End file.
